Review Summary: The Follow-up to 2006's 'Your Ghost Is A Gift' is a much more polished and effective record at demonstrating Ligeia's capability and relevance.
1 of 1 thought this review was well writtenI heard of Ligeia by accident when browsing Ferret Music's online store some time ago. Intrigued with the name, I checked them out, they were not bad, but at the time I wasn't interested in getting into a new band so much. A year or two passed, I completely forgot about them, and then, surfing the net one day, I noticed that 'Bad News' the follow up to their debut 'Your Ghost Is A Gift', was about to released. So i eagerly rushed to their myspace, remebering a bit about them in the process.
I remebered their heavy metalcore sound mixing both clean singing and deep-ish screaming like many metalcore bands and I remebered rather boring songs, not bad songs, but nothing interesting per say.
When the album came out, I bought it (which isn't saying much, I buy 99% of my music), but only after listening to it several times through was I pleasantly surprised at how original the music was.
First of all, Bad News is a great follow up after 'Your Ghost Is A Gift', (I looked back and did my homework), however, Ligeia's sound differs quite a lot between albums. In 'Your Ghost...', Ligeia sounded like an average metalcore act, nothing special at all to differentiate them from the crowd. The guitar's were distorted heavily, and the screaming was pretty basic. Additionally, the singing parts sounded more adolescent and gave the listener the image of a less developped band. On 'Bad News', the vocals have changed considerably, the screaming is now a rage-ridden yell, which translates the bands emotion to word. The guitars have a very distorted feel to them, but don't really command as much attention. The bass is actually present and clear, for the most part, and the song structure has been rearanged.
The groups writing is superb, with heavy, dark riffs to back up Keiths vocals. A few songs include breakdowns (I was opposed to the idea), but they're actually quite well done (Teenage Wasteland). The drums are written for metalcore, nothing amazing there, same with the bass (not to say they aren't talented and capable musicians, just that no parts stand out). The song pattern is a bit different now, in that it isn't always intro->verse->chorus->verse etc.
Lyrics here mostly deal with intoxication and a woman, who in some songs the narrator seems to be struck with love for (Bombshell, I've Been Drinking), and in others seems to hate (Bad News, Hoodrat, Hot Mess).
A few songs are clean, there is an interlude (creatively titled interlude), which is pretty boring and pointless, and the acoustic City and Colour esque 'Heroin Diaries', which doesn't quite fit the album, but they were reaching out I suppose.
After listening to it several times, I keep coming back to it. Why? For catchy choruses like 'Johnny Cash', and 'Hot Mess', and addictive songs like 'I've Been Drinking' and 'One Night Stand'. for the pure hangbanger parts of 'Teenage Wasteland' and the purely hilarious gang vocals on 'Hoodrat'
Some may not take interest because of the lack of originality, but if you can put the fact that Ligeia doens't reinvent the genre, they just play it, out of the way, you may enjoy it.
I highly recomend this Cd. It may not break new ground, but it re-ignited my love for all these things by simply doing them better than the average band, and if an album these days can achieve that, it's worth a second listen.
